UDI updates statistical information regularly on immigration. It is good to read the statistics if you plan on immigrating to Norway so you know your chances of approval right from the start. From UDI.no:
In 2011, 73 per cent of applicants for family reunification were granted residence permits in order to live together with family members in Norway. However, there were big differences between countries as regards how many were granted approval.
Big differences between countries
Nine out of ten applicants from North and South America were granted approval for family immigration. Relatively many applications from people from Africa, the Middle East and South and Central Asia were rejected. The highest percentage of rejections was for applications from countries in East Africa: on average, only 55 per cent of applicants from East Africa were granted family immigration permits.
Illustration: Map of the world showing permit approval percentages
Facts about specific countries and regions
North Africa:
The family member in Norway was usually of Norwegian origin.
Most applicants were female, but the percentage of male applicants was higher than for family cases as a whole.
Morocco was the top applicant country.
Eastern Africa:
The family member in Norway was often a refugee.
Almost 60 per cent of applicants were children with parents in Norway.
The percentage of approvals was higher for children than for adults.
Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia were the top applicant countries.
South-East Asia:
The family member in Norway was usually of Norwegian origin.
The majority of applicants were women.
Thailand and the Philippines were the top applicant countries.
Turkey:
Turkey differed from the rest of the Middle East in that it had a far higher percentage of male applicants.
The family member in Norway was usually of Norwegian origin.
The percentage of rejections was higher than elsewhere in the Middle East. There was no difference between men and women in terms of the percentage of rejections.
India:
India stood out from the rest of South and Central Asia, with a rejection rate of only six per cent.
The family member in Norway was often a person with a work permit for a skilled worker.
The majority of applicants were women or children.
Why is the percentage of rejections of applications higher for some countries?
The Norwegian authorities believe it is important that people who want to bring one or more family members to Norway are able to provide for them. The most common reason for rejecting applications for family immigration in 2011 was that the income requirement was not met. The income requirement was tightened after the new Immigration Act came into force in 2010. This was probably part of the reason why rejections of applications in 2010 increased by six percentage points compared with the year before. In 2011, almost all applications were processed in accordance with the new Act, and rejections of applications rose by a further two percentage points, to 30 per cent.
In addition, some issues and grounds for rejection were more relevant to some countries than to others. These reasons for rejection often came in addition to failure to meet the income requirement.
Requirement for four years of work or education
Asylum seekers or refugees, and people who came to Norway as family immigrants and set up families after arriving here must have worked or studied for at least four years for their families to be granted approval for family immigration. This requirement affects more people from countries from which many asylum seekers have come or will continue to come.
Identity documents
It is not possible for many applicants from Africa and parts of Asia to obtain ID documents or other documents that could prove their family relationships. The documents that we receive from certain countries are also often falsified. More applications from these countries were therefore rejected due to doubts about people’s identities or because we believed that it was unlikely that people were related in the way they claimed.
Marriages of convenience
A lot of people in many of the countries with a high percentage of rejections have a strong desire to emigrate, and some are willing to go to extremes in order to settle in the West. Some of those who applied for residence permits with a spouse were not in a real relationship, but simply got married in order to obtain a residence permit for Norway. In 2011, we rejected 120 applications on these grounds. Somalia, Morocco and Turkey were the countries with the highest rejection rate due to marriages of convenience.
Stricter requirements for foster children, full siblings and children over the age of 18
A number of applications were submitted by foster children and full siblings over the age of 18 from countries in East Africa in particular. Many requirements have to be met in order to be granted such a permit, and the majority of these applications were rejected. Some of the applicants from these areas were people over the age of 18 with parents in Norway, and there is very little scope in the regulations to grant permits to these people.
Figure: Family immigration permits by grounds for residence of the person in Norway, 2011
Proposed amendments to the regulations
The new rules for family immigration entailed a tightening of the income requirement. As we have gained experience of how the regulations function in practice, we have also seen that the rules have a number of unintended effects. The UDI has submitted input to the Ministry of Justice on this matter and proposed amending the regulations. Among other things, we have proposed that the income of the person applying for the permit can also be included when we assess whether the income requirement is met.
Key figures for 2011
12 900 family immigration permits
73 per cent were approved
41 per cent of permits were granted to children
77 per cent of permits for adults were granted to women
Most came from Somalia, Thailand, the Philippines, Eritrea and Russia
18.04.2012
(Correct at date of publish)
http://www.udi.no/Norwegian-Directorate-of-Immigration/Annual-Report-2011/Work-and-residence/Who-came-to-be-with-their-families-in-Norway/

Good to see that you still have time for an occasional contribution to your blog. It has been a while since the last time. I was starting to wonder if Moose had taken advantage of his ‘right’ to send you back to Oz in the seven year window you mentioned in an earlier post. Actually, I’m impressed that you have time for even an occasional post since you’re involved in so many activities plus having all the farm animals to look after besides.

How does the average citizen feel about the influx of new immigrants to Norway? My own very limited contact with a few retired Norwegians reflected some resentment due to the generous benefits bestowed upon the new immigrants vs their own benefits. There seemed to be some racial issue involved too, near as I could tell. This may not be an issue with a younger age group.

____________________from L-Jay:

I have taken a little break. Farfar was very sick over the last year but still his death took us by surprise. This blog is sometimes about his life and farm so it is only now that I feel like writing about it again.

The younger age group is influenced by ‘humanitarianism’ and don’t realize that they are paying for all the new people who enter Norway. With a little bit of maturity they will likely change their minds on the issue when they earn enough money and have a family to support and they see their tax on their wages.

Some Norwegians think that immigrants fill in the jobs Norwegians don’t want. Some Norwegians think immigrants are ok only if they take the lesser jobs like cleaners and gardeners. And some Norwegians don’t like it at all but only feel free to discuss their disliking in private.

Currently there are about 10,000 immigrants granted work permits each month. They mainly work in the farming and fishing, hotel and IT industries. But immigrants bring the English language. Norway has stepped up their language learning requirement from 300 to 600 hours because they can see that English language is starting to become the norm at work places which means that it excludes some Norwegians who aren’t proficient at English. Norway wants to be seen as a ‘humanitarian’ country by the EU and US by bringing in a lot of third worlders. But in order to do that they will have to sacrifice the Norwegian language for English. Problem is, they haven’t really told the Norwegian people that their language will soon be obsolete. It will be a slow winding death to the end of Norwegian. It is about evolution. If Norway wants to survive in the modern world it needs to evolve. Keeping a language for tradition and history doesn’t really work because the rising generation wants to be modern. This is what happened to the Aboriginal language in Australia. The question: is it less painful to rip the bandaid off quick in one go or to easy it slowly? One day Norwegians will wake up and find that Norway speaks English.

Could you please go deeper on this “Problem is, they haven’t really told the Norwegian people that their language will soon be obsolete”?

Love to hear some facts, not just personal opinions. Keep up the good work!

____________________from L-Jay:

Here are some evidences that Norwegian language is taking a back seat in Norwegian society:
In order to pass high school in Norway you need to pass English. Most Masters and PHD programs at Norwegian universities require a high level on English language competence. A lot of bachelor courses use English study books. Most Norwegians have cabal or satellite which broadcast mostly English-speaking shows. About 95% of movies are in English. Norwegian singers mostly write songs in English. When the leader of the Nobel Peace Prize committee speaks to the world there are always comments from the Norwegian public about how bad he speaks English. When Norway and Norwegians want to communicate with the rest of the world they have to use English. There are more and more jobs on nav over the past years that require people to also speak and write English.

The mere fact that the government is trying to make immigrants learn Norwegian more by increasing the immigration tuition hours 100% and that Norway has a Language council with the soul purpose to Norwegianize English words (or to make up words so Norway doesn’t use English), prooves the fear the government has of Norwegian being obsolete.

I think Norwegian language is used to keep out the rest of the world. English is used when they want to invite the world in. For example this blog. Many people in the world don’t get to know about Norway because in the past knowledge was only available in Norwegian. This blog shares knowledge about Norway in English, and the response is amazing. Norway is realizing that globalization is gaining force and because they want to be a contender in a global market English is the official-unofficial language of Norway (and guess what happens when if Norway joins the EU). It’s a matter of ‘damned if they don’t and damned if they do’.

This is a really interesting post and some really interesting comments!

The point which strikes me most is to do with Norwegian possibly being lost. This scares and saddens me.
I think its a really good thing that they’ve increased the required hours of Norwegian tuition in an effort to make immigrants learn Norwegian better (or at all).
I too recognize the effects of Norway becoming more globalised and multicultural. I work in a barnehage and we have recently gotten in loads of new kids to start the new barnehage year. Most of these kids are not Norwegian or are from a half Norwegian half something else home. A lot of these parents don’t speak Norwegian or speak it very badly so suddenly everbody is required to speak English in order to communicate.
Most of these people have been in Norway for many years and yet they haven’t learned Norwegian. I personally can’t understand why. I don’t know if they’re not bothered, they find it too difficult, they haven’t ‘needed’ to learn it (because they know they can get away with English) or what, but I think that if you move to a new country then you should learn the language.

What’s more, Norwegians really think English is ‘cool’. I think they take pride in showing off and being good at English, so for them (or most of them anyway), its fun and exciting to ‘have’ to speak it.

English is becoming more and more visible in the way Norwegians speak, and its actually considered a good thing. Its sad that this will lead to the language’s demise in years to come.

____________________from L-Jay:

I lot of the kids I teach prefer learning in English because they think it is cooler…lol.

I think it is a romantic idea that if you move to a new country you should learn the language. Language is more importantly a communication. For me, it is more important to communicate and if that means it is more efficient for the Norwegian to speak English rather than me speaking Norwegian, so be it. If I had the power of knowing two languages (like many Norwegians actually do) I would not purposely go out of my way to try and teach the ‘immigrant’ by only speaking to them in the language they did not know. It becomes a little condescending after a while. Communication connects people together, it builds relationships and enables understanding. I think there is a direct link between immigrants feeling not wanted and Norwegians force-teaching immigrants the language otherwise they will not be spoken to. I think that Norwegians sometimes (if not most times) use their language as an excuse not to connect with immigrants. Norwegian language is basically the only thing that makes Norwegians have power in Norway. If all immigrants spoke fluent Norwegian the Norwegian culture would change much faster into ‘multiculturalism’. However, I also think many Norwegians are beginning to feel excluded in Norway and that is why the big push for immigrants to learn Norwegian. Immigrants learning Norwegian will not make them more Norwegian but it will enable them to spread their own culture and customs in Norway.

Yes, language is also about identity and culture but language is constantly changing, so when Norwegian is so diluted will Norwegians still feel connected to their language, will it still be part of their identity?

I’m interested in your comment about Norway possibly joining the European Union. Wirh all the fiscal problems facing EU, I should think that Norway with their strong economy would be delighted not to be a member. What is the current sentiment in Norway toward EU?

____________________from L-Jay:

I’ve heard some Norwegians discuss that the national vote to join the EU or not a couple of years back was the first real democratic voting in Norway. (I’ve heard liberals say that the reason why social-christian governments get in power is because the liberals are too lazy to vote – but the liberals certainly voted ‘no’ on the EU.) The vote to join the EU was ‘no’ (which brought the political leader at the time to (sad) tears on public TV), but I think it has done Norway well considering the EU economic status now. However, costs and importing is very painful in Norway. Lowering import costs and making it easier to trade was the initial reason for the EU (then they became political). Norway really needs to be able to open to the idea of cheaper trade – problem is now if they join the EU they will have to be subject to all the other ‘stuff’ the EU inflicts. I think when costs become too high in Norway, which will start to make greater divisions between the wealthy and poor, Norway will likely put up another vote to join the EU. I think Norway is laughing a little at Sweden for joining the EU too quickly…lol. But will Sweden be laughing at Norway for not joining in a couple of years? I don’t know. It is likely that when Norway starts to have financial issues then they will seriously think about the EU again. I think the government is having more financial issues than they are letting the people know. Consider all the shocking details of the Breivik trial about how the government has no money to give the police and that is essentially why Breivik got away with causing so much havoc. Heads are rolling! People are asking the Prime minister to step down because he is the one that cut the police budget so they can give more money to the war in Afghanistan.